After a viral infection sidelined him in Japan, forcing him to postpone a dozen Asian and U.S. concerts, Paul McCartney' launched the current U.S. leg of his Out There tour at the relatively intimate confines of the 17,000-seat Times Union Center on Saturday night in front of a jam-packed house. And he left no doubt that he was in full rockin' mode.

Having celebrated his 72nd birthday just last month, the cute Beatle – and, yes, girls, he's still cute – exhibited no health concerns at all during his three-hour performance that found him mesmerizing the adoring fans with a sprawling set of more than three dozen songs from the most influential songwriter of the rock era - culled primarily from his Beatles catalog, but also from his tenure with Wings and his solo career. And despite the almost bottomless well of timeless songs that he drew from, he didn't short-change his latest album, "New," serving up five of the songs, most notably the romping "Save Us" and "Queenie Eye," as well as the new addition of "On My Way to Work." And the new material was able to stand alongside the Fab Four classics quite nicely.

Precious few pop stars have endured a half-century in the white-hot spotlight of super-stardom, but McCartney still delivers the goods. More than that, he somehow managed to make the music sound surprisingly vital after all those years. In fact, he still seemed genuinely excited to stand on stage and rip through "All My Loving" for the gazillionth time. The show ran the gamut from heavy rockers like "Let Me Roll It" to a solo rendition of "Blackbird" to a varied batch of love songs – from the claves 'n bongos samba of "And I Love Her" to the raw-throated roar of "Maybe I'm Amazed."

In addition to being a supremely gifted songwriter, a stellar vocalist (though a bit frayed on some of his upper register notes) and a charming entertainer, McCartney is also a versatile musician, and on Saturday night he played electric bass, electric and acoustic guitar, piano and a bit of ukulele strumming on "Something," too. But, of course, he didn't do it all by himself. And odd though it may seem, McCartney has now played with his current (andexceptionally versatile) band – Paul 'Wix' Wickens (keyboards), Rusty Anderson (guitar), Abe Laboriel Jr. (drums) and Brian Ray (guitar and bass) – longer than he played with either the Beatles or Wings.

McCartney dutifully served up the requisite blockbuster hits "Hey Jude," "The Long and Winding Road" and "Let It Be" and never down-shifted into auto-pilot. And the crowd kept the energy up all night long, eagerly singing and clapping along. "Man, that's a great welcome back, I'll tell you," he told the crowd before launching his second set of encores with "Yesterday." The show even included an onstage marriage proposal by a Rochester couple, although perhaps "Helter Skelter" wasn't the best song to follow it.

And so in the end, of course, it wasn't just a concert; it was a full-scale, larger-than-life rock 'n' roll event. But then again, that's pretty much always the way it's been whenever Sir Paul McCartney takes to the stage, isn't it?